


Tea in the Sahara

by kittydesade



Category: Nochnoy Dozor | Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 10:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you've seen countries, regimes, civilizations rise and fall, when you've made terrible mistakes that cost the lives of thousands and agonized as much over one lost potentiality, when you can see all the possible futures stretching out before you, it takes a rare person to put you truly at ease for a quiet conversation and a cup of tea. Even if he's your enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea in the Sahara

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).



"Gesar."

The tea house echoed on the last syllable of that man's name. Without knowing why, every head turned towards the speaker and then away again, as though they could not bear to look. The chatter resumed in trickles after that, here and there, as each cluster of people shook off the momentary disquiet as a swallow of burnt coffee, a bitter slice of fruit, the last sliver of sun in their eyes. No one commented on the strangeness of the unison movement. It passed out of their minds on a wave of willful ignorance and was gone. 

The man thus addressed nodded, acknowledging both the name and the influence projected with it. "Zabulon." And this time no such ripple occurred, though he could have given it a similar force if he wished. "Good to see you again, old friend."

"And to you," his opposite number nodded in return. "Are things not proceeding well?"

"Matters are proceeding exactly as they should," Zabulon said, asserting his satisfaction with a concluding bite of a cream-filled pastry. It gave him the cat-in-the-cream appearance he was most likely seeking, albeit to no great overall effect on his opposite number. "Have you discovered him yet?"

Gesar didn't blink. "Not yet. In its time," he nodded, acknowledging the point without admitting which point of the several Zabulon might have made. "It would be inappropriate to hurry things along."

"Inappropriate?" Zabulon leaned his head back, flashing a throat that hadn't seen sunlight in several weeks by now. "To your reputation?"

"To our intentions," he corrected, both in number and in object. "We do not determine what he will do, or how he will decide. We are there when the choice is presented to him, so that he does not make it in ignorance."

"We all make our choices in ignorance," Zabulon dismissed the choice of phrasing, if not the meaning beneath it. "By the time we learn to read the lines of our potential fates accurately we have already chosen, whether we know it or not." 

Gesar chuckled, more amused than provoked. "It must be acknowledged before it is made, and a person might surprise you. Don't you remember what it was like to be surprised?"

The Dark Other leaned back in his chair with a frown like a chill breeze on a clear day. Silver clinked against china as he thought back, as Gesar watched him with stern fondness. They had endured centuries upon centuries together, and they knew each other by now better than any other in their lives, better than anyone they claimed to care about. Some things were difficult to let go of, of course. Deception came naturally to them, ingrained as it had been when they were students together. One always treated the Day Watch as an enemy, and in the Day Watch it was most likely the same. So few of them lived to learn otherwise.

He kept a watchful eye. If Zabulon lied to him, Gesar might well call him out on it. If Zabulon was lying to himself, there was little he could do.

"I remember wondering," he said at last. "It's not the same thing. But I remember wondering and being uncertain whether or not I was taking the right action to achieve the desired result." 

Gesar tapped the edge of his spoon against a saucer, tea dripping down and collecting in a thin, opaque line. Predictable, the fact of the flow of each drop of liquid down the blurred surface of the spoon. But unpredictable where it would land. As it was unpredictable where Anton Gorodetsky would land once awakened to his potential. Zabulon thought he had the whole thing sewn up, every contingency planned for. "The right action?" he asked, latching onto the one part of that which was clearly mistaken.

"Action, series of actions. In the right direction at any single point," Zabulon waved a hand, dismissing the semantic quibble. 

"But that's just the point, isn't it," Gesar leaned forward, dropping the spoon back to the saucer and clasping his hands. "How can you be sure, even now, that you're doing the right thing? Even by your standards."

" _Even_ by?" Zabulon's hands froze in mid-spread. He leaned back till the shadow of the window brace fell between them, covering his fingertips. 

Gesar had overreached, and admitted it with a slight bow of his head, folding his hands inward one on top of the other so that he was clearly visible. "How can you be sure now, more than then, that your course of action will get you what you desire? Precedent? Practice?" 

"Experience? Doesn't that count for something?"

A shrug, a tilt of one brow and another sip of tea. Now more than ever Gesar was unsure of how much experience counted for. What was about to happen was supposed to be unprecedented. Which would then be a great disappointment if it turned out to be no more than another petty squabble between Light and Dark. And impossible to predict if the scope and nature of the event was as predicted by their analysts. In the old days they would have been oracles, beating drums and giving out cries of a time of great change upon us. Now they sat at computers and clucked their tongues, drank coffee by the gallon and complained about insufficient data. 

Zabulon was unconcerned. Perhaps because Zabulon's desires were simpler; either he would turn this to his advantage or he would deny his old enemy a piece on the board, and reaction was always easier to prepare for than action. Gesar had to make sure that everyone remained safe and in possession of their own faculties, their liberty. That was the more difficult path, to his way of thinking. The path that required more attention and sacrifice from the ones who walked it.

One reason, it was said, that there were more Dark Others than there were Light was because it was easier to find a selfish person than to find someone willing to put forth great effort to ensure the safety and well-being of others, with no advantage to them. 

Zabulon sighed, setting his empty cup to one side and stacking the utensils neatly where they could be collected by a passing busboy. "You worry about the right course of action too much, old friend," he told the Light Other. "Our kind and theirs have not managed to extinguish ourselves or each other in the millennia since we crawled out of the ocean. A few more selfish bastards in this world will not make a difference." 

"This one would," Gesar lifted his brows at his old enemy, half-smiling. "It takes so little. You know that."

"And we, as individuals, change so little. You should worry less, Boris Ignatevich, and enjoy yourself a little more. You might find your life is easier for it." He tossed some money down to cover the cost of both their meals, smiled pleasantly to the passing tea girl, and left. 

The ambient volume of the conversations kicked up a bit, enough to be noticeable. The head of the Moscow Night Watch shook his head and took his friend's warning for what it was, a gentle reminder that they would both be fighting for a favorable outcome on this one, Light and Dark. Some battles could be conceded, some wheedled to a victory, and some would come down to tooth and nail. This would be one of the latter.

He left a larger tip for the tea girl and the rest of the staff, an apology for having brought their weighty matters into the establishment.


End file.
